Can you miss someone you have never met?

————

In the cold north, there was an artist, she lived in a three-story glass tower of windows and bright light—with space for an easel and a desk to write. Her home was pleasant, better than most had it. It had what she needed but slowly it became all she had. The world outside grew further and further away and so too did her art as pain crept into her world.

Gnawing, aching, constricting pain sealed her in her tower. Stronger than any lock it trapped her and became all there was. She watched the world, watched as others sealed themselves for other reasons—oh how they wailed, growing frustrated by the walls that enclosed them. They paced and snarled, waiting for the world to open again, but the Artist—she stayed silent. She watched them and wondered if they could understand the bleak world she saw—if they could endure the pain that had locked her away, the pain that could not be identified.

She tried to retreat from the pain, tried to outrun it without moving, hiding in stories. Stories mediated through screens—stories that made her remember touch and talk, hug and hold. Stories that cut and made a new ache in the Artist’s chest. The stories settled around her, becoming her new world as her body betrayed her in the old one.

As the stories of others faded and the Artist started to make her own stories, seeking touch and talk, hug and hold—happy endings and emotions she still remembered. She sought comfort again through a screen, the people on the other side are real after all, they can touch and talk and type.

And type.

And type.

She converses over leagues, her words spoken with no breath of life, hidden through a screen, the Girl in the Ether. She appears in a place of childhood love, immature discovery. She speaks to the Artist and she feels so real.

Her wants and dreams, her laugh and life—the Artist know them all, they are hers. Her laugh a nd her life —reflected from far away. And the Girl knows the Artist as if she is the face in the mirror and the Artist knows the Girl.

Separated through time and land, beyond lake and mountain the Artist in her tower found the Girl in the Ether—through a glowing screen. She swam and spun stories in silver thread, saltwater air kissed her skin—air the Girl missed so.

As they spoke, they found it in every little thing—as if they took in the same breathe, moving in time across miles—they found the piece that had been missing. The Girl in the Ether understood the pain that locked her in the tower, helped pull her from its paralyzing grasp with stories woven through their minds across a screen. The Artist understood when the Girl stumbled pulling her up and back on her path.

Stories that took on a life of their own, pulsed with an energy all their own. Part Artist, part Ether. Slowly they loosened the locks. A new pain formed as they grew close from so far away, grew to miss the one they never knew, never met. Through a screen, was it really real? Heartache mixed with searing pain and the Artist didn’t understand, but she knew—

Soon,

Soon, the Girl would leave the ether and she would leave her tower.

By Sabrina Lindsay

From: Canada

Website: https://medium.com/@sabrinajadelindsay

Instagram: Sabrina_J_Lindsay

Twitter: SabrinaJLindsay